An apparatus for feeding and depositing a small item to be packaged like a tablet, capsule, pill, dragee or the like in a packaging machine into a plurality of upwardly open cups or pockets in an advantageously deep-drawn foil strip, can comprise a feed slider and a distributing slider substantially parallel to the foil strip positioned above the foil strip over one above the other.
The upper one of the sliders movable transverse to the feed direction of the foil strip is the feed slider and is provided with a plurality of openings each dimensioned for receiving and passing only one of the small items and arranged in a pattern like the cups.
The lower slider, movable in the feed direction of the foil strip, is the distributing slider and is provided with a plurality of holes for individual passage of the small items from the openings into the cups. The sliders are slidable into a delivery position in which the openings coincide with the holes and with the cups and at least one of the sliders into a closed position in which the distributing slider secures the openings in the feed slider underneath against passage of small items.
In a known feeding and depositing apparatus taught in German Open Patent Application No. 22 62 951 the slider usually moves along the foil strip under outlet mouths of troughs feeding the small items in regular rows. The small items fall into the openings of the feed slider passing through the outlet mouths in succession.
The feed slider is pushed against the distributing slider transverse to the foil feed direction into the closed position so that the distributing slider closes the bottoms of the openings to the foil strip.
However the holes in the distributing strip coincide with the cups in the foil strip. When all openings of the feed slider are each filled with a small item after running both sliders under the trough mouths, the feed slider is pushed from the closed position transverse to the foil strip direction into the delivery position so that the small items fall from the openings through the holes downward into the cups.
These holes are slots open at one end which extend in the foil strip direction over almost the entire length of the distributing slider so that the distributing slider has a substantially comblike shape.
The openings of the feed slider empty into the cups on being kept in their delivery position. Then both sliders jointly are pulled back in the foil strip direction under the outlet mouths of the troughs. Thus the openings of the feed slider are displaced transversly with respect to the outlet mouths of the trough so that the foremost small items in the trough sliding through it are put on the feed slider and the small item feed stops until the feed slider in the original initial position slides transversely into the closed position so that the openings turn out under the bottoms of the outlet mouths but nevertheless are closed by the distributing slider.
This known feeding and depositing apparatus has the disadvantage that the feed slider motion must be performed in two directions perpendicular to each other which makes the structure of its guide and drive expensive and the adjustment of the changed package format complicated.
It is also disadvantageous that the small items require an alignment and arrangement on filling the feed slider to principally be able to reach the troughs so that the openings can be filled with the small items in succesion from the trough which takes much time.
It is also a disadvantage that the filling of the feed slider occurs with the small items over the foil strip thus product dust and/or broken pieces originating from the small items fall not only into the cups but also on the top side of the foil strip between and outside of the cups which in later sealing of the foil strip with a covering foil acting to close the filled cups can lead to inclusion of contanments in the product and thus to waste of the packages.